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Korea veterans to be honored in Rose Parade

Pentagon remembers ‘Forgotten War’

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoMark J. Terrill | Associated PressJames McEachin, 82, who earned a Silver Star during the Korean War, will ride on a float that honors veterans of that war in today’s Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif.

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By Julie WatsonASSOCIATED PRESS • Tuesday January 1, 2013 6:59 AM

SAN DIEGO — It’s been almost 60 years since James McEachin returned home with a bullet still
lodged in his chest, finding an America indifferent toward the troops who fought in Korea. Now, he
will get the homecoming parade he had expected.

The Defense Department for the first time will put a float in Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses —
one of the most-watched parades — to commemorate the veterans of a conflict that still casts a
shadow over the world.

“I think it’s a magnificent gesture, and it cures a lot of ills,” said McEachin, who will be
among six veterans who will ride on the float today. The 82-year-old author and actor starred in
Perry Mason TV movies, among other things.

The $247,000 flower-covered float will be a replica of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in
Washington.

This year will mark the 60th anniversary of the July 1953 armistice that halted the bloodshed
but did not declare peace.

Col. David Clark said the Pentagon decided to sponsor one of the 42 floats in the 124-year-old
New Year’s Day parade to raise awareness about what has been called “The Forgotten War.”

It has taken decades for the success of the war’s efforts to be recognized, and the department
wanted to remind Americans about the sacrifices that were made by the veterans, most of whom are in
their 80s, Clark said.

The war resulted in South Korea developing into a thriving democratic ally, in sharp contrast to
its bitterly poor communist neighbor that is seen as a global threat.

“As a nation, this may be our last opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to them and honor their
service,” said Clark, director of the department’s 60th Anniversary of the Korean War Commemoration
Committee.

“We didn’t march home in victory,” said McEachin, a Silver Star recipient. “We did what we were
supposed to do, which is stop this aggressive force called communism.”

Edward Chang, director of the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at the University
of California, Riverside, said U.S. intervention gave South Korea the opportunity to become one of
the world’s major economies.

“Most Americans simply are not aware of what is happening in Korea and how it happened,” he
said.

More than 36,000 U.S. service members were killed in the conflict, and millions of Koreans
died.

Korea was the first conflict in which all U.S. military units were integrated racially. Clark
said the float’s veterans reflect that historical milestone.